For the development of the methodology, the analysis of products, production processes and business processes have been considered. It has also been essential to take the specific product production aspects into account. The methodology has been developed on these basis. It consists on the one side of a knowledge management part. That means all relevant product and production process information is bundled within a matrix within this approach. The interdependencies between product elements and production processes are stored within this matrix. Additionally standard process chain catalogues were developed, which store the interdependencies between different production processes.

The following diagrams describe the Product-Process Matrix, which contains the main elements for the methodology development, and the steps for the developed methodology.